Merriam-Webster Word of the Day - Officinal

WORD OF THE DAY January 9, 2018

officinal  adjective | uh-FISS-uh-nul   Definition : tending or used to cure disease or relieve pain : medicinal Scroll down for more about officinal WORD GAMES AND QUIZZES: WEEKLY CHALLENGE Pass the Little Ribbons: A Pasta Word Quiz Match the pasta with its meaning in Italian.   PLAY NOW   Nailed this quiz? We have plenty more to try!  TAKE ME THERE   Plus:   SEE WHAT LOOKUPS ARE TRENDING NOW!   Did You Know? Officinal is a word applied in medicine to plants and herbs that are used in medicinal preparations. For most of the 19th century, it was the standard word used by the United States Pharmacopeia to refer to the drugs, chemicals, and medicinal preparations that they recognized, but by the 1870s it was replaced by official in this context. Despite this supersession, you still can find a healthy dose of officinal in the pharmaceutical field, where it is used today as a word describing preparations that are regularly kept in stock at pharmacies. Officinal was derived from the Medieval Latin noun officina, a word for the storeroom of a monastery in which provisions and medicines were kept. In Latin, officina means "workshop." Examples of OFFICINAL The plant turned out to have officinal properties and could be used to make an anti-itch ointment. "Europe's mania for rhubarb in the second half of the eighteenth century energized the drive to find the plant in its native habitat. Was this plant … the very same one that for so long had provided the officinal root for European pharmacies? — Clifford M. Foust, Rhubarb: The Wondrous Drug, 1992 Test Your Vocabulary Fill in the blanks to complete an adjective that means "corrective": a _ _ n _ at _ _ y. VIEW THE ANSWER   ASK THE EDITOR Is it wrong to use 'decimate' to mean 'destroy'? Language changes WATCH THE VIDEO NOW

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